It's show time

As I mentioned I would in last week’s posting, I participated in an exhibit sponsored by the Minnesota State Horticultural Society at The Minneapolis Home and Garden Show this weekend. The theme of this year’s show was “I’ve Got the Music in Me” and the arrangements were to be interpretations of song titles.  The song I chose to illustrate was Lennon and McCartney’s “Blackbird”. There is also a composition on my web site called “Blackbird”.  However, these two arrangements could not be more dissimilar. The composition for the Home Show had to be made of fresh, cut flowers. The arrangement on our web site is almost entirely artificial.

This is a collage of the Blackbird arrangement
on our web site.  The flowers are artificial. Only
the calla lilies were retained as the composition
morphed into the arrangement shown at the
Convention Center.

 Because there are no truly black flowers, both arrangements consist of varieties that are dark purple, blue and red. At the base of the web site composition are calla lilies the color of eggplant. Rising out of these are a bramble of leaves and branches that create an environment for the black birds in this scenario. At the top are three “bat lilies”, which are included for their interesting shape and deep color. The funky vase is entangled in vine that reinforces the woodsy theme. In this panorama are two blackbirds. These creatures are formed from dried grass (the one element that is not artificial) that has been twisted and wired into a shape that suggests the appearance of a bird in a folk art sort of way.

The composition for the Home Show suggests a single, large blackbird nested in a jet- black vase. This interpretation emerged after many experimental trials. As noted, there are no black flowers, so I had to use the darkest tones available. Of course, when I went to select my blossoms, the flowers that I intended to use were not available from my usual source. There were no callas of a sufficiently dark tone. Neither the mums nor the ti leaves were as deeply colored as were those I used in a practice run the week before. Let me point out that this is not a problem with permanent botanicals. Because the inventory is not perishable, availability is not such an iffy proposition.

This is the arrangement I exhibited
at the Home and Garden Show. For a
more detailed view, go to our Facebook page.
I hope you can give us a "Like" while
you're there.

The darkest blossoms I could find were some beautifully dark red roses and some dahlias of a comparable tone. I didn’t want to use dahlias because they have a very short shelf life as a cut flower, but these looked fresh and I didn’t have a lot of choice. I treated them over night in a rehydrating solution that florists use to extend the shelf life of cut flowers, and hoped for the best. So the body of my blackbird was covered with a mantle of these two blooms. The tail is comprised of a fan of ti leaves. The ti plant is a member of the same family as asparagus and comes from the tropical isles of the Pacific Ocean. It comes in a variety of colors and sometimes the red leaves are so intensely colored they almost appear black. Of course, not this week, but I was lacking alternatives and used what was available. To give the tail greater complexity, I included stems of a kind of leafless frond. The wings were also made of ti leaves.

Another angle of our Home and Garden Show Blackbird.
Even if you don't see a bird, the lilies, roses and
dahlias contribute to a pleasing composition.

I was fortunate enough to find darker calla lilies at a local florist. These were used to comprise the bird’s head. To elevate them above the body, I used a length of black bamboo. Into the end of this I inserted a tube that served as a small vase, holding the lilies in a reservoir of water. Of course, the entire bird is really an abstraction requiring some imagination to visualize. The head, especially, is just a simple topiary; it is a head because it is at the end of a neck. To my eye, the flare of calla blossoms  suggests an energy, or motion, that animates the composition. Perhaps that interpretation is just artistic license. Feel free to disagree.

Overall, the composition held up pretty well for the three days it was on display. Unfortunately, there were not many exhibitors. This year was the event’s debut and I hope it grows in popularity. It is an opportunity for anyone to try their hand at flower arranging and to share their work with the public. The arrangement next to mine was submitted by a nine-year-old girl. I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet her.